I've been meaning to buy some sound recording equipment for some years now, typically I've not got round to it. I've also got the sound approach books but have never really sat down and read them and learnt about sonograms and all that stuff. I should have really because for the last few days I've been involved in trying to nail Yorkshires third Iberian Chiffchaff, and capturing it's calls and song on a phone, no matter how smart it is, isn't very easy.

It all started on Sunday night whilst I was watching the Germans play fitba (too much time in Scotland, where they don't seem to play fitba, or Football for that matter) when Tim rang to say he had a prob Ibe Chiff at Grimston. I went through and heard it singing and calling and it all sounded good the bird giving a downslurred reed bunting like seeuu call and a song with 3 component note types 'chiff chiff chiff swee swee swee der der der der, however as it was quite late in the evening and it was raining it wasn't as vocal as we'd have liked so we agreed to try again the next morning.

Monday morning was bright enough and the bird was singing almost constantly, it also called at least 15 times. We saw it well at distance through scopes and managed to record the song so it all looked sorted. Trouble was when I got home the song hadn't come out well at all on the videos I'd taken due mainly to too much wind. So we were left with our notes on the plumage and our written transcription of the song, not really satisfactory.

I went back in the evening and had loads more attempts at recording it but still found most were poor. We needed to get the bird closer to the phone so I played a bit of song and then the calls from the Andreas Shulze recording to it and hey presto it came to within 5 or 6 feet of my head and started shivering it's wings and calling a lot, for the next ten minutes it sang it's head off moving from tree to tree in a display flight with it's tail half cocked and it's wings fluttering. I've never seen a bird respond so convincingly to a bit of playback. Another interesting point is that at times it's withing 15 metres of a pair of Chiffchaffs which are nesting but they have never once sung or engaged in any territorial disputes with it so they obviously don't see it as a threat.

I managed to get one or two recordings where you can tell what it is but I still wish I'd got round to buying that parabolic dish and mic!

These are probably the best bits of song I managed but you'll have to listen carefully, the first burst starts at 33 seconds and then just at the end of the vid.

As most of you will have seen from pager reports most of the areas Tim birds at Grimston are private and he alone has permission to work them. This bird is half a mile from the nearest public footpath or road and surrounded by trees so there is no chance of seeing it unless access is allowed. Tim has asked if the owners will allow access but they have refused. Fortunately there shouldn't be anyone upset by this decision as the well twitched bird is still present at Potteric should anyone be desperate to see one. Better not to push for access this time when the bird is no longer important and save it for a really big one we think.

As usual I've been up in Scotland a lot and when I have been home there's not been much to see down at Spurn. I did manage to see the Savi's at old moor the other week which was a welcome grip back as I was the only one in the top ten in the county who needed it. And as a bonus has put a bit of breathing space between me and the lads in joint tenth. It showed really well too, these pics were phonescoped!

Just River to go for the set in the county now, surely it must be due a re-occurrence?

My camera has packed up, it keeps locking the shutter and saying error 30. If I turn it off then on again it works but it's not perfect. So I took it back to Jessop's and they sent it off for repair. After a couple of weeks I got an estimate for repair for £447!!! Obviously I wasn't happy as it's still under warranty. So I'm on the phone to Jessop's who tell me the repair agent (Thomas photographic) say it's due to it having a hard life and being knocked heavily or dropped and give me the number of the repairer to contact myself. When I rang them they tell me it's due to corrosion inside, so it appears they can't make up their minds. I was on the phone for about ten minutes and this guy's saying I'm not their customer so they won't deal with me and I have to go back to Jessop's, anyway I must have annoyed him by being persistent as he hung up!!! I'll keep you posted, expect me to get annoyed and swear a lot before this is sorted out!

I'm not into superstitions and all that stuff but I think this weeks events have been a bit odd. First on Monday for no reason other than there was nothing on tv I watched Control, even though at the end it tells you the date Ian Curtis dies it didn't register, then on Wednesday I watched 24 hour party people, on Thurs I saw the cover of NME and realised it was 30 yr anniversary of Ian dying this week. Then today as I'm reading it I found we were both born on July 15th! Strange or what.

Anyway here's a couple of videos. They're not all live footage of the band cos there's not much of it around.

Went back up to Scotland on Sunday 9th for 7 days, the plan was I'd do a couple of days with the lads and then shoot off to meet another crew for a boat survey off the Northern Isles before another couple of days on the mainland. I've wanted to sea Killer Whale for a long long time now and thought I was gonna have to spend a couple of weeks in Shetland in July or go on an organised trip to see them so to see these amazing things just left me speechless. We reckoned the male was about 8-9 metres long, or feckin massive!

There were six of them and they hung around for about an hour, as you can see in the video below they weren't shy! the one in the vid came as close as 3 metres from the boat and actually twisted her head to look at us!!!!! At one point they caught a seal (I think) and ripped it apart, one of them twatted a lump about two foot long with it's tail and sent it flying through the air. It was unbelievable.

Dan has found out since that they are a regular pod in these parts but have also been seen in the Faroes.

Whilst I was enjoying these Yorkshires second Iberian Chiff was being twitched by all the keen Yorks listers, it wasn't long before I was getting texts and phone calls. Ha as if I was bothered about some poxy phylosc with a dodgy voice, they all seemed to see my point of view.

After the euphoria of the killers it was back to normality for a couple of days. I managed to see about 100 Great Northern Divers, a few migrant Dotterel and an Iceland Gull over the course of a few days. Then it was back to the mainland were I had a climb up a mountain on one of the sites, it's the third time I've done this site and at last I connected with Ptarmigan, and a pretty embarrassing lifer finally bit the dust wappo. The only British breeding sp I still needed!

On the way home the car decided to have a bit of a fit and ran out of petrol even though the gauge refused to drop below a quarter and the computer said it had 25 miles left in the tank! Fecking thing, after pushing for a mile and then getting a lift to the next services we finally got going again at 1am. Bastard cars. As you can imagine Adam was over the moon and his usual jovial self!!

Anyway back at home and playing it ultra cool I finally got to Potteric for the Chiff at about midday, it was duly wapped off and I'd had two tick in two days, 3 in a week if you include the Orcas. To be honest I was pretty struck by the Chiff it was far more obvious on shape and plumage than I expected, that said I'm still on a high from the Killers, the only bird I've seen that beats them hands down is Needle tail and I'm struggling to think of any others that compete so I can't get that excited about a phylosc that has hardly any stripes!!!

After Scotland it was a week down a Slimbridge doing some data analysis work, I didn't get any birding done cos the reserve shuts at 6 and I had a bit of work to do to my car, the brakes had just started to grind on the way home from Scotland so I got some Ferodo racing pads to replace the EBC green stuff ones I had in it. Don't get me wrong the EBC ones were good and probably more than your average driver needs, these new ones tho are in a different league I just can't believe how much more stopping power they have. Mind you they'll probably wear out in half the time and eat the discs in the process.

Been mega busy since my last post so seen plenty of Eagles, Kites etc. Went to the Caper watch at Loch Garten one day and had distant views of a male and 2 or 3 females but not seen a lot else.

I cocked up the other day whilst sat reviewing paperwork in the car I left the ignition turned on and killed the battery, I flagged down a bloke in a people carrier who said he had some jump leads but he wasn't gonna get them out of the boot cos he had a fridge and.....wait for it........a parrot in the boot!!! A fuckin PARROT!!! the twat I was gobsmacked, he pissed off and left us sat at the side of the road. We eventually got going after the local garage came out with a starter pack and it fired up instantly.